The Secure Node Tracking and Payment system is making daily progress. This is a software system still in beta testing phase. It is operating on the Zen blockchain mainnet, and ZEN credit from the 3.5% of mining rewards redirected for Secure Node payments is accruing on the system for each node that meets performance and uptime requirements.

The system is designed to maximize transparency and minimize uncertainty about accrual and payment status. Accrual for credit began on Dec 15, 2017. As of today (Dec 19), there are over 30,000 node payment records in the Secure Node payments database in the processing pipeline. The status updates move through a process:

Review

Funded

Pay

Paid

At each step of the way there is information provided both to the managers and operators of the system. This is done publicly and transparently.

The next step is to have the system process payments and update status of each Node Payment line item, which will progress from Review to Paid. This way each secure node operator is able to see exactly what the payment should be, when the payment took place, the transaction ID, and follow the transaction all the way to using a ZenCash Blockchain Explorer.

The ZenCash team is working right now on generating the first payments. Each batch of records is verified, funded, then sent. Multiple transactions are created and sent to the system until the payments are complete. The system then updates the status of each transaction. During the beta testing there is additional security and checks to verify each step of the process is working.

Monday the team went through the process for the first day’s payments, hit some system limits, and payments were not processed. This is an expected part of development, deployment, testing, and validation. It is a complex system, and what was designed to work at 500-1000 nodes needs to be changed when there is more than 4000 nodes.

The specific limits hit were in database updates. The initial design of the database server cluster was in multiple datacenters around the world, with status checks and failover for reliability. As the number of nodes grew, the round trip transit time of data around the world led to the updates exceeding the amount of database transactions that could be handled without error.

This is a known issue, and it is currently being addressed. Database servers are being upgraded to larger systems, and clusters are being located in closer geographic proximity. There is also an update to the tracker application to change how some of the updates are made to the tracking servers. These are the primary methods being used to address the issue, are being worked in parallel, and are not dependent on each other.

The updates are expected to take 2-3 days to accomplish, then payment processing beta testing will continue. During this time, the Secure Node credit will continue to accrue for everyone operating their systems.

This is the first version of the Secure Node Tracking and Payments system. It is designed to accomplish the tracking and payments in a centralized way, demonstrate the validity of the Secure Node concepts, and lay the groundwork for the next version which is planned to be integrated into the blockchain protocol and operate on the nodes instead of the current centralized system.

Create and maintain a valid TLS certificate from a known Certificate Authority.

Run the node on a server with enough processor and memory so that it can meet a computational challenge.

Maintain a full copy of the ZenCash blockchain.

Keep the node up and running at least 92% of the time.

3.5% of the ZenCash mining reward is distributed to all Secure Nodes which meet the requirements during each pay period. That is 252 ZEN per day.

ZenCash enables people worldwide to conduct transactions, communications, and publishing with the assurance their information is kept private or anonymous, and Secure Nodes ensure availability to every person in the world, no matter where they live.

ZenCash Bi-Weekly Live Stream update for the community

The most recent update was done on Dec 13, 2017. See it here:

Background on ZenCash

ZenCash is an exciting cryptocurrency with a solid technological foundation, unique capabilities, an active and capable team, ongoing funding for improvements, and a large, positive, encouraging community.

It is available and trading now on Bittrex, Cryptopia, Upbit, Coss.io, and Bisq, has wallets available that implement the advanced private transaction and messaging capability, and has a strong development roadmap for future improvements.

The goal of ZenCash is to create a usable private cryptocurrency operating on a resilient system for people and businesses worldwide, enabling the daily use of private transactions, messaging, and publishing by people everywhere, all the time.

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[…] Secure Node Payments have started, and we’re working our way through payments from December 15th, so expect yours soon. Please have patience as we work through the system. For a full update, view our blog post: Secure Node Beta Payment Update. […]